


Like The Sound Of Crazy

by skyline



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Cheesiness, I live in the realm of cheese, M/M, Never Have I Ever, Ray is the happiest drunk, Rip doesn't get drinking games, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 11:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6152023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray and Leonard have a lot of similar feelings about <i>family</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like The Sound Of Crazy

**Author's Note:**

> Er, so. If Jax is twenty one, my bad. I assumed no, because he was in high school when the particle accelerator went haywire, and its been like, what? One, two years? I don't math, so lets just roll with the idea that he's not in this fic. 
> 
> Also, there is a one hundred percent chance that this makes no sense. Oops.

“Never have I ever _died_.” He pauses, considering. “Er. Never have I ever _physically_ died, not just died in the eyes of the Law. Those don’t count as the same thing, right? I’m thinking not, but-”

An elbow in Ray’s solar plexus shuts him up, Snart grinning while Sara salutes Ray with her shot glass.

She says, “Low blow, Palmer. Low blow,” and throws the whiskey back, honey-amber sparkling bright as it sluices into her mouth.

Mick follows suit, and when everyone stares, he says, “Heart stopped for twenty eight seconds after I got shot by a cop. It counts.”

“It certainly does,” Stein tells him, his lips pressed into a thin, disapproving line, like maybe he wants to give Mick a cookie and tuck him in at night. Anything that will keep the poor, hardened criminal out of trouble.

Ray laughs under his breath at their dysfunctional family unit.

“You’re a cheat,” Kendra tells him, even though her dark eyes are dancing. “You’re not supposed to pick on people for things you _know_ they’ve done.”

“Look at that, Raymond,” Snart chuckles, low and melodic. “Bird-girl’s advocating for fair play. Never have I ever been reincarnated.”

He draws the word out, the ‘ _re_ ’ sharp on his teeth, the ‘ _incar_ ’ filled with too many a’s, and the ‘ _nated_ ’ tripping off his tongue. Ray feels the reverb of the word in his bones.

Kendra shrugs and laughs, knocking back a shot like a pro. Every day she seems more comfortable in her own skin, even on this madhouse of a ship with its murderers, crazed scientists, and thieves. “Fine. Never have I ever robbed a bank.”

Mick and Leonard salute her, begrudgingly, the latter downing his whiskey with the barest of grimaces. After a moment, Sara follows suit. At the stares it earns her, she protests, “It was for a good cause.”

“This game is inane,” Rip announces, for the umpteenth time. “If you want to drink, why don’t you simply drink?”

Everyone turns their gaze on him, a mixture of disapproval and amusement pinning the man with high beam focus. Sara says, “The future sounds like a dismal place, and I hope never to visit there.”          

“Amen, sister.” Snart clinks his shot glass with hers.

Despairing of them all, Rip says, “I hate team bonding.”

Kendra knocks her shoulder with his. “You’ll get used to it.”

“I certainly hope not.”

“We’re lovable,” Sara protests.

“And adorable,” Ray adds, crooking an awkward smile at them all.

Snart mutters something that sounds suspiciously like _nerd_ under his breath, and this time it’s Sara cheering him on.

Ray doesn’t shrink in on himself, or begin to wonder if he’s made a misstep. He can see the tiny smile that turns Leonard’s lips behind the tilt of his glass.

“You forgot impossible,” Rip amends. “Insatiable. Intolerable.”

“Those all sound like compliments to me,” Leonard retorts, voice a dead drawl.

“Can I please have some?” Jax asks; another of the night’s recurring questions.

This time, however, he’s managed to sneak Dr. Stein’s shot glass away. The honey-colored liquor is practically aglow in the Waverider’s track lights.

Snart admonishes, “When you’re twenty one,” plucking the glass from Jax’s hand with nimble fingers.

Jax groans. “We’re in space. There are no laws!”

“There are guns,” Kendra advises, patting Jax’s hand and looking pointedly at Mick, Snart, and Stein. Jax manages to look suitably wounded by the all too motherly gesture.

To make matters worse, Stein begins, “Alcohol has a number of adverse effects on your system, Jefferson,” ever fatherly and condescending in sync.

No one pays him any mind; they all know what he was like in college. Glumly, Jax says, “Never have I ever smoked a joint,” which shuts the good professor up posthaste.

He takes his drink with dignity.

It prompts Rip to ask, “Should a man of your age be, uh, imbibing so much?”

“Exactly what do you think my age is, Captain?” Stein asks, voice full of ice.

Rip has the good grace to cower. Ray has his back though. He says, “Hey, it’s a valid question. You were born sometime Before the Common Era, right?”

Kendra winces. Sara laughs, delighted. Jax says, “He’s got you there, Gray.”

“Careful, Raymond. I trained a tyrannosaurus rex in my youth,” Dr. Stein replies. He’s getting too good at this deadpan thing, it’s almost like he’s growing a real personality. “I’m confident Mr. Hunter wouldn’t mind taking us back to meet her.”

“I bloody well would,” Rip mutters. “Ingrates. I forgot that one. You’re all ingrates.”

Ray laughs so hard he sneezes.

He’s received by a chorus of _bless you’s_ from everyone except for Snart, who says, “I was hoping you’d the plague and were dying.”

“Seconded,” Rip says.

Ray throws his arms around both of their shoulders, the jostle of it nearly tipping the whiskey bottle. “Aw, you guys. It’s almost like you care.”

He’s beaming so brightly that Leonard rolls his eyes and reaches for the whiskey.

Rip slumps and looks askance at his ship, and probably Gideon, wondering why he recruited a team of absolute idiots. It’s an ongoing existential crisis of his.

“Ray, do you know what my favorite thing about you is?”

“Why, no. Tell me, Sara?” Ray begs, his voice as conspiratorial as hers.

She grins, big and cheesy. “No matter how many times these jerks insult you, you just roll tide right past it. You’ve got gumption.”

“I have got that, haven’t I?” Ray removes the bottle from Leonard’s protective grasp, pouring some for himself and ignoring the way Snart nearly, almost, possibly makes grabby hands. “How about that, Captains? I’ve got _gumption_.”

Rip says nothing. He’s clearly given up on life, the universe, and everything in between. Leonard, though. He frowns and asks, “Do you want a boy scout badge?”

“Yes, please,” Ray answers smartly.

Sara is delighted, and delightful. _Everything’s_ delightful, from Snart’s mild irritation, Mick’s constant scowl, and Kendra’s benevolent smile, to Rip’s bitching and Jax’s bemusement and Dr. Stein’s dry, ever-developing sense of humor. These are the things that, frighteningly, are beginning to feel like home to Ray.

That’s a scary thing for a man who has a bad track record in keeping family.

He does not think of Anna, or Felicity, or anything that came before. Instead he slugs back a shot and asks, “Whose turn is it?” because if there’s one thing drunks are great at, it’s _not thinking_.

* * *

 

Right, so getting plastered on a space ship probably wasn’t Ray’s greatest idea ever.

He’s not motion sick, exactly. He’d just like it if the world would stop literally lurching under his feet.

“Stop the ship,” he demands of Rip. “You shouldn’t drink and, uh, pilot.”

“I’m British, Mr. Palmer. I can hold my liquor.”

“That’s a stereotype. I disapprove of all stereotypes. Except when you say words like lift and loo, because then Kendra and I make fun of you behind your back.”

Kendra glares. Rip gives them both an inscrutable look. It actually resembles the vast majority of his looks.

Sagely, Ray tells him, “You should practice facial expressions in the mirror.”

“Why ever would I want to do that?”

“Because maybe then you’d smile more. You look nice when you smile.”

Careful fingers are extricating the whiskey bottle from Ray’s hands. “I think that’s enough for you tonight.”

“Snart? How dare you steal my whiskey? That move besmirches my honor, and that of my ancestors, and that of my city!”

Leonard eyes Ray, his gaze as icy blue as his gun. “Right. I wouldn’t want to besmirch the honor of the esteemed Star City, known for its dead billionaires and its…what else is it that your city is known for, Raymond?”

“Murder,” Ray replies brightly. “My people like to murder! We’re one of the world’s murder capitals.”

Derisively, Sara inserts, “We don’t like to _murder_. It’s called vigilantism.”

“Not when Damien Darhk’s doing it,” Ray retorts breezily, and that’s probably the only time anyone has ever said Damien Darhk’s name like it’s not a curse word.

Sara shrugs, like, _touché_. She says, “I miss home.”

“Me too. The murders slightly less.” Ray sags against Snart’s grip around his waist, happily breathing the other man in. He tells him, “You smell like whiskey.”

“Right back at you.”

Up close, his eyes are much too blue. Ray traipses out of Leonard’s grasp, heart racing. He jumps up on one of the cockpit chairs and spreading his arms wide. “Guess what guys? I can fly!”

He makes to jump off the chair, but Mick and Leonard both have him by the shirt, manhandling him – somewhat gently – down to the ground. Gruffly, Mick advises, “Not without the suit, you can’t.”

“You make good sense,” Ray agrees.

He spins on one foot, just to see if he can, while his crew, his family, blurs at the edges. When he stumbles to a stop, it’s in front of Jax, who says, “On second thought, maybe I’ll stay sober forever.”

“That’s the right idea, kid.” Ray wrinkles his nose, a frown tugging at his lips. He demands of Jax, “Wasn’t I just flying?” like it’s the kid who dragged him to the ground.

Sara takes a swig of the whiskey, and hey, how did she get that, that’s Ray’s. Never mind that they had like, twenty bottles, procured from their most recent trip to the south in, oh, what, 1893? _That_ bottle is totally Ray’s.

“Sara,” he starts, careful not to offend her, because she is the definition of a scary lady. It’d be hot, if she had ever shown the slightest iota of interest in Ray. Which she hasn’t. He’s kept an eye out, just to be sure. “Sara,” he tries again. “That’s mine?”

Sara lifts an eyebrow. “Want to take it from me?”

“I think it’s time for Dr. Palmer to retire,” Stein hurriedly suggests, and that’s how Ray knows he’s got to be faced, because the old man rarely, if ever, uses proper nomenclature around Ray. He earned his PhDs, damnit. All of them!

“Good idea, pops,” Snart says, smacking his lips together for extra emphasis.

He takes Ray by the crook of his arm and begins to steer him out of the cockpit, leaving behind the low murmur of Sara, Mick, and Kendra’s laughter, the heavy disdain of Stein and Rip, and Jax’s outright confusion. Family, Ray thinks happily, and he snuggles closer to Snart, because why the hell not?

“You’re a handful,” Snart observes, but he doesn’t pull his arm away.

“You won’t let me fly,” Ray replies mournfully. This is a real sticking point with drunk-him.

“By all means.” Leonard points down the hall, where one of the Waverider’s hatches sits, shrouded in darkness. “The door’s right there. Help yourself.”

“Tricky. You are tricky.” Ray jabs him in the chest, stumbling a little. “We’re in space, and I’d die. I know that, because _science_.”

“Clever boy.”

“I know I am. I have a few degrees that say so and everything,” Ray replies proudly. “How come you’re not drunk?”

Snart shrugs. “I’ve done less than you’d think.”

“For a criminal, you are pretty straight-edge.” Ray wonders if that’s because he had to raise his sister, but he knows better than to ask. He wonders how much Snart misses Lisa, but he knows not to ask that, too. “How many different ways do you think Sara could kill me?”

“More than you could count on your fingers or toes. Or mine,” Leonard allows, and he almost sounds reverent. “Do you want to find out?”

“No. How many ways can you kill me?”

Leonard falters, and because Ray is attached at his hip, he does too, knocking into the wall with an _oof_. He guesses, “Bad question?”

“I’ve heard worse.”

“Are you going to answer it?”

“No.”

“That’s probably best.” Ray beams. “Hey, you know what I’ve never done?”

Warily, Snart raises those eyes of his, blue like tundra skies, and Ray decides on the spot that he has excellent ideas. He announces, “This,” and throws his arms around Leonard’s shoulders.

“Raymond?” Snart asks, his voice somewhat muffled against Ray’s throat. “Why are you hugging me?”

“You looked like you needed one!” Ray says. “I like to give hugs.”

“Very altruistic of you. Let go now.”

Cautiously, Snart sets about unfolding himself from Ray’s grip, but Ray’s pretty determined to hang on here. He’s got a sixth sense about hugs.

“Raymond,” Snart says, a little more urgently. When Ray still doesn’t let go, he wraps his arms around Ray’s back, squeezing a bit tighter than is strictly necessary. “Happy now?”

Ray’s arms fall to his sides. “Yep!”

Leonard stares at him. “Why did you do that?”

“Because you’re my brother! At arms! And arms are made for hugging,” Ray reasons. “Plus, you looked sad.”

Snart’s face is unreadable, but he extends his elbow for Ray to latch onto all the same. As they walk, he inquires, “Do the Boy Scouts give out badges for kindness?”

“Sometimes,” Ray says. “Usually you just get a cookie. Why were you sad, Captain Cold? Wait- do your tears freeze when you cry?”

Leonard snorts. “I was surprised. And no.”

“Surprised by what?”

“How little I want to kill you.”

“I’m growing on you!” Ray exclaims.

“Like fungus.”

“Like awesome fungus!” He’s beaming like a little boy, and he can’t help it. “I’m glad.”

“Why?”

“Because you, and the team? You guys are like my family.”

It’s a little too honest. This time, Snart actually does trip over his own feet, and Ray knew he shouldn’t have said that. Of all the fucking blunders. “I mean-“

“I know what you mean,” Leonard says, and he’s facing Ray, in close, his fingers wrinkling the sides of Ray’s shirt as he steadies himself.

He’s peering at Ray like he’s trying to find a lie somewhere in there, but Ray’s not big on lies when he’s sober, much less now. He asks, “Are you going to hug me?”

“No,” Leonard replies, without a hint of a drawl. He’s got that intense expression he wears during a heist, the one that says something excellent is about to happen, and Ray likes that. He digs excellent things.

He waits.

But not for too long.

The kiss takes him off guard. Ray’s world is already unsteady and off-kilter. Breathing Snart in doesn’t help with that at all, the rough brush of his lips and the taste of him overloading Ray’s system.

Leonard’s mouth on Ray is hard and filthy, his tongue probing too deep, too quick. It’s nothing like the way he kissed that Soviet scientist, not civilized or gentlemanly or fake, and that makes it hotter. Ray presses his body against him, trying to get close, trying to get friction.

He whines a little, which would be utterly humiliating if he could even work up the ability to care.

Snart breaks the kiss, his lips slick and red. He’s breathing fast, startled by himself. Ray smiles so widely his teeth hurt.

“I can fly,” he tells Leonard.

The other man has the good grace to look flustered as he replies, oh-so-quietly, “Right now? So can I.”


End file.
